Cards
by cartoon moomba
Summary: You look a lot like your mother." "You knew my mother?" laguna and rinoa and the ghosts of the past.


"You look a lot like your mother."

The first time he meets her, he's twenty-something again and watching an angel in human's disguise grace the room with her presence.

Brown hair against ivory skin, darkened to the point of being black. Chocolate eyes, specks of grey, too much like Julia's, in his opinion.

"You knew my mother?"

Her voice is different. Bold, young, curious, too loud and too strong. Julia was confident, soft, quiet, like the petals of a rose. Rinoa is the thorns of poison on the stem, overshadowing the gentle beauty, shining in her own individual way. She stands tall, proud, a woman who has taken on the world and survived. Her face is bright, a shade paler from the exhaustion of keeping the world from falling to chaos, awaiting his answer.

Laguna nods. "I did. Once."

Rinoa's eyes light up. Her lips form into a small smile, half grimace half happiness, hardly remembering the woman she calls Mother; only fleeting touches of warmth and smiles and embracing arms. Hints of roses in the air, mixed with the stench of cheap beer and voices in the lounge, loud and boisterous, echoing in the hallway past the cracks underneath her door to where she's curled up under the blankets, listening to the glass smash against glass in the living room.

"Were you friends?"

She's so innocent and yet not, pure and stained, young and old at the same time. The world is on her shoulders, now and forever as long as magic flows through her veins, but she's still flying in the sky, on invisible wings.

He considers the answer for a few hesitant seconds. _Friends?_ They spoke once. _Acquaintances?_ They cared too much to leave it at that. _Lovers? _

Time did not bother to stop for them.

He wonders if the young woman before him would still exist, had he left the military for the woman of his dreams. Would his son still be alive, had he never washed up upon that shore of little Winhill – had the two been lovers, siblings, lost souls not yet born into the world? Would there be attempts at Time Compression, would there be no time now, would Adel be still locked in space? If there was one small twist in their path, one miniscule change of the past where two people did not know of the future, would all of this have been avoided?

Rinoa is still waiting for his answer, a ghost of Julia of the past, a spectre of a twisted future, the answer to all the _what ifs _running through his mind. She is the key to the better future, even if it just for now, because he knows this will repeat itself over and over again as long as time runs its course in the universe; until the Laguna of a different world will leave for Julia, until there is no Squall and no Rinoa, and therefore no one to stop Ultimecia from fulfilling her wish.

_Who is Ultimecia_, is still the question running through his mind, but Laguna figures that this soon after the death of the sorceress herself, Rinoa needs no more pain about the past.

He shakes his head. "No. I saw her perform at Deiling once."

Rinoa's enthusiasm falls, and her face frowns, but she sighs and offers him a smile anyways. "Oh, alright. Thank you."

Squall's voice is calling from beyond the door for the girl, and she leaves after one last look at Laguna, her eyes lingering on his, almost wondering if he knows more than he says, but his secrets are his own and she has plenty of those, and if it was truly important she'll find out sooner or later.

Laguna Loire watches the wings on her back shift as she swings her arms as she walks, opening the door and yelling back out to Squall, teasing, her voice suddenly mute as the door falls shut behind her. To him, she's the ghost of his past and the hope of his son's future, not _Julia _but she's _Rinoa _and Rinoa wouldn't have existed if Julia stayed in love with him.

So Julia couldn't wait long enough for Laguna, and Laguna fell in love all over again, and the two managed to forget while still remembering, and life went on without bothering to leave enough happiness for the both of them.

Julia is gone. Laguna is alive. Julia's daughter is in love with Laguna's son, and Laguna finds himself wondering how fate manages to deal out its cards in such a funny way.


End file.
